Sylvia's Scenario

I haven't done a New Year's Resolution in a couple of years but I think I have one this year.  I've been pondering what makes for a festive holiday season with lots of holiday spirit and what makes for a stressful holiday season.  Everyone wants a low stress holiday season with lots of fun times and memorable moments, of course, and I feel fortunate that that’s how mine has been.  For me, I know the most obvious reason is because we haven't traveled anywhere.  It’s been really nice staying home to relax and enjoy the holidays.  Our last trip was in September for Bruce's birthday but we haven't gone anywhere since.  I get in a good routine when I’m home and I have a nice, low stress frame of mind.  My diet is more healthy and I exercise regularly.  I'm not going to say that my New Year's Resolution is to not travel, however.  There's more to it than that.  We also had friends and family come over for dinner parties more than usual so the...

I've been feeling like one of Santa's elves lately busy working in my workshop.  It's always a big push to get our boxes mailed off to Japan to Nick's family and the grandkids and then once that's done, it's another big push to get all the almond roca  mailed out to everyone.  In-between all that, it's wrapping presents and putting them under the tree.  My dinning room or workshop looks like this: It's a good thing we aren't having anymore dinner parties...!  All I have to do now is get ready for Christmas and that seems like the easy and fun part.  We've gone to a few holiday events around town in-between all the preparations like at the Public Market they call Magic in the Market.  Just being at the Market is fun in and of itself but it's extra special at Christmas with all of the festivities happening. It's my favorite place of all Seattle.  And we are fortunate that it is so easy for us to get there because we just take the water taxi...

Now that Father's Day is over and our visitors have left,  I've had some time to settle down.   I thought I would post my other cream pie that I made for Father's Day this year which was a banana cream pie to accompany the chocolate cream pie.  I have only a few days left until our very busy July hits with five birthdays to celebrate, plus our anniversary, plus the fourth of July.  So, it will be a busy July.  I've made this banana cream pie several times so I am finally posting it.  In my family, chocolate cream pie is the favorite but honestly, this recipe is a close second.  I usually make them together for a big crowd which I did this year for  Father's Day because there were ten of us with my sister and her husband visiting and my brother and his wife also visiting.  There are never any complaints about having too much pie.   After everyone left, I took a week off and went on an Alaska cruise with a girlfriend which was a ukulele c...

I'm not sure I need another Thai curry recipe but I made this recipe over the weekend and it was very hardy and satisfying. This was a recipe in our newspaper and when I read it, I thought “I like the idea of eating pumpkin spice soup this time of year” (and a lot more healthy than pumpkin spice lattes...although, I like them, too!)  I don't have a soup recipe like this one but I have other similar recipes like this  Thai Red Lentil Curry & Spinach which we also recently had for dinner. I think it must be the time of year for warm, spicy meals. And then there's my Basil Red Curry Salmon that's one of my favorite salmon recipes. These two recipes both use Thai Kitchen's red curry paste and this Pumpkin Spice Soup also uses it. It's a super easy way to make a meal pop with flavor.                                                       I...